The Starless Sea Novels & Stories

She became part of the casualties, one less problem on their ledgers. She clawed her way out from under the rubble, nails bloody, left shoulder hanging wrong. Two fingers bent sideways—she nearly gagged at the sight. She didn’t cry. She dragged herself clear of the wreck, crawled through a hole in the burning wall, and collapsed in the icy mud behind the kitchens. Dawn crept over the sky in violet and gold. Pretty, if you like that sort of thing. She hated it. She hated that it never changed, that the beauty meant nothing whether she’d been the clan’s prize or disgrace. Hated the stars for not even pretending to care. Hated her own lungs for gasping, her heart for beating stubbornly on.

Without the light, her eyes could not see through the dark; she was as blind as any human scavenger relying on the rough sound of Jasmine's breathing to know she wasn't alone. In her lap, Leo was cold. He was breathing. The skin on his chest where the black star had been was now a smooth and pale scar, completely dark and silent. The ‘Sovereign Vessel’ had been emptied into the wires, its contents grounded into the bedrock of the valley.

Through the dinner-plate viewport, the moonlight on the underside of the waves is a roof of beaten silver, close enough to touch, already pulling away. “We’re not going to a battle,” Sarah says, to nobody, to the controls, as she opens the valves and the sea takes us. “I’ve been to a battle. You come back from a battle. We’re climbing into a grave ten kilometers deep, and we’re pulling the lid shut over our own heads. So. Everybody hold your breath like you mean it.” The silver roof closes. The light goes. And the Nadir-04 begins to fall.

Every star answered the bond. The Source whispered ancient words in a language older than creation. The golden stranger bowed his head. The First Wolf and the First Alpha knelt. The Keeper closed its eyes. The original Aria smiled proudly. Our matching marks rose from our skin, becoming two streams of silver light. Slowly, they reached toward one another. Only inches remained between them. Then the ground beneath us shook violently. Not from the creatures. Not from the Silence. Something else. A deafening roar echoed across every reality.

"Zack? Leo?" "I’m good," Leo said from the corner. The boy was already standing, his feet somehow anchored to the deck. His grey eyes were fixed on the viewing port. "We're here. The Sea of Tranquility." Victor looked out. The landscape was a monochromatic nightmare. Dust as fine as flour coated everything. But in the distance, the obsidian spire stood tall, pulsing with a cold, rhythmic violet light. "The hull is breached in Sector Nine," Zack wheezed, clutching his ribs. "Oxygen is venting. We have maybe twenty minutes before we’re breathing vacuum."

It was a garden of pure potential, waiting for a seed. ​"We’re through," Elia whispered, her voice sounding like it was coming from the bottom of an ocean. "We’re... on the other side." ​The Respiration tumbled out of the darkness and into a space that was terrifyingly empty. There were no stars here. No Core. No Swarm. Only a vast, shimmering "Sea of Information" that stretched in every direction. ​The Empty Page

The fire went out with a final, salty gasp. In the dark, there was only the sound of our breathing. And the endless, uncaring sea. THE END.

EXT. SECRET ISLAND – BEACH – DAY While Maika was lost in her thoughts, watching the gentle waves lap at the shore, Carl stood from a distance, hidden behind the trees. His amber eyes were locked on her. His heart raced. She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Her pale skin glowed under the golden sunlight, and her long, dark hair blew softly in the breeze. Carl's own dark fur and rugged features were a stark contrast to her ethereal elegance. But he didn’t care. He couldn’t look away.

He smiled, he slightly understood what was the mermaid wanted to say. B-But you never came back. I didn’t realize that my eyes were flooding with tears. “Why are you crying Nolan?” Orlene asked. I shook my head, “N-No, it’s nothing.” I replied. “It will be much better if you will not ask him more,” Amansinaya said. Orlene seemed to understand it so she just kept herself quiet. “Let’s go?” Amansinaya asked; we nodded at her. The setting sun was the last thing I saw as the time we went underneath the sea.

The crowd erupted into an uproar. "How could such a person be qualified to be a professor? He's truly the scum of the academic world!" "So, he's a leech living off his wife? I get it now." Arlo trembled as his face turned crimson. Simone's face was even paler. She hugged Hayden and curled up into a ball, wishing she could find a crack in the ground to hide in.